The Civil Rights Act of 1964

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On July 2nd, Lyndon B Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which banned employment discrimination based on someone’s race, religion, color, sex or national origin, enforced desegregation of schools and the right to vote. And while the act didn’t end discrimination, it furthered its progress.

Even though this act was passed over 53 years ago, it still affects us today. Everywhere in the world, everyday, people are discriminating based on race, gender, age and even the way someone looks. There are many places that won’t hire someone to work based on any of their beliefs or preferences. For example, a store may not hire someone who recently immigrated to a country because they may not speak the common language as well as they would like. Since the store didn’t want to hire that person, the effect is that this person is now unemployed and doesn’t have a way to earn a living on their own.

I would say that this issue affects everybody; all races, all ages, all religions, etc. In the United States especially, this issue has been a big controversy even way before the act was passed just because of opinionated reasons. In order to truly end employment discrimination, I believe that employers need to start hiring based on someone’s skills versus on their appearance, race, gender or religion.

To my knowledge, nothing is being done about the issue mainly because the act was already passed but also because it is not widely known. Many people choose to turn the other cheek when it comes to this because it doesn’t apply to them and/or they don’t want to confront it. I believe that anybody has the power to end employment discrimination but they would have to have a deep passion for it. Trying to solve this issue would require lots of time and energy but it would truly make a difference in the end.

Finally, this topic impacts Roosevelt because some students looking for employment might have difficulties because they aren’t fluent in English or because of racial discrimination.